


babe, stay, stay

by polyommatusblues



Category: The Purge (Movies)
Genre: (though i totally ship them w o w), F/M, kinda gen?, the title is kinda shippy whoops, we're going with gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 12:26:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12557364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polyommatusblues/pseuds/polyommatusblues
Summary: He’s a dangerous man, she knows this—he’ll kill with no remorse if he thinks it justified; he’ll yell at her at the drop of a hat—but he’s also impossibly kind, protective, trustworthy, brave. He loved his son with a fierce love; this much she can see clearly. Something in him must have broken when he died, of course it did, and this is what remains.





	babe, stay, stay

**Author's Note:**

> So I've had this as a WIP doc for _so long_ because like really, who wants fanfic about The Purge?? Apparently me, because I just re-watched "The Purge: Anarchy" on FX and fell in love with the characters all over again. The stranger (known as Leo, according to "The Purge: Election Year") and Cali have an especially interesting relationship.
> 
> Anyway, here's the thing, because what do I have to lose. I hope someone scrolls through the tags looking for Leo/Cali fics and finds this.
> 
> Title from "Robbers" by The 1975 :)))

She’s probably in shock. She knows this. She’s just seen someone she knows get killed; she’s heard more gunfire in the span of ten minutes than she has in her entire life, in all other Purge nights combined.

Too many people have died, just died, in a single apartment just a few feet away from her. No one can prepare you for that kind of trauma. No one can prepare you for that kind of death. 

When the mysterious stranger takes them to the bottom of the apartment stairwell, leaving the massacre they have just witnessed behind, his frustration is nearly palpable. Cali longs to know his name—then maybe she’d be able to get through to him—but raging emotions or not, he’s still elusive as ever. He slams his fists into the wall and she’s terrified that this is it, he’s leaving, and there’s nothing she can say to make him stay. She wants him to stay. For more than safety, she thinks. For solidarity. For absolution.

Her fears are never realized, because he comes back to them, emotion draining until he’s calm enough to start re-planning. Then, Cali grabs his hand on impulse, quickly, and hope for some unknown and impossible thing fills her chest like fluid.

 

 

 

 

When she and the rest of them are captured and set on stage to be sold, when she finally understands how pigs must feel, in line for slaughter—she can feel her mother beside her, trembling. She’s far away from her stranger, but she knows he must be plotting already. She has known him for less than ten hours, but she knows this much: that he is always one step ahead. That with him, she’ll be safe. They all will.

They’re taken into a room that is dark, so dark that she has to fumble for her mother’s hand and his blindly. Then, lights. The room lights up brilliantly for one second, then again it is black.

“We’re being hunted.” The words tumble out of his mouth with something that sounds like fear. Cali doesn’t think about this for very long, just squeezes his hand. Briefly, so briefly she could be imagining it—he squeezes back.

It becomes very obvious, if it wasn’t already before, that these Purgers didn’t expect any of their own to die. But Cali is done expecting anything less from this mysterious man. She wonders if everyone else is drawn to him the same way she is, how he tells them _Just point and shoot_ , like it’s the easiest thing in the world.

Maybe it would scare her if he wasn’t protecting all of them so fiercely, like they all are his own. She doesn’t know where he’ll go or what he’ll do when he inevitably leaves, but that does scare her, just a little.

 

 

 

 

What really scares her is how easy it seems to be for him to slip from protector to avenger in the blink of an eye. He’s unafraid to threaten the woman auctioning them off as Purge bait at gunpoint; he is also, she learns, unafraid to murder the man responsible for the death of his son. Eye for an eye and all that. She doesn’t really agree with that line of thinking; she doesn’t agree with a lot that he has done tonight, but she is alive and her mother is alive and they have only him to thank.

Cali’s eyes flick immediately to him when he tells them about his son. Her mother stares straight ahead, probably feeling this account more acutely, imagining if it were Cali dead. Imagining the things she would do to get justice.

As he’s telling the story, her eyes never leave him. Even in exhaustion, even in year-old grief, he has a certain appeal. It’s not just the physical, which is obvious: his jaw, the set of his eyes. Blood leaves a crusty filter on the skin of his neck but she’s seen so much blood tonight already, she’s numb to it.

He’s a dangerous man, she knows this—he’ll kill with no remorse if he thinks it justified; he’ll yell at her at the drop of a hat—but he’s also impossibly kind, protective, trustworthy, brave. He loved his son with a fierce love; this much she can see clearly. Something in him must have broken when he died, of course it did, and this is what remains. Peel away his pain, butterfly him, and this is what you’ll find. Cali can see that. She can.

 

 

 

 

In the car, when she can’t make him stay—when he stalks into that hated house regardless of her protests, Cali throws open the car door and yells at her mother to stay inside. Eva shouts back at her but complies.

“No, no!” Cali yells, running into the house after him. He turns just as he’s entering the living room, but instead of being angry, his eyes are full of pain. Cali slows, encroaching upon him. He could turn around and shoot her at any moment; she knows this. He won’t kill her, not after everything, but she has no doubt that he’ll do whatever it takes to get his way.

She hides behind the threshold of the door until he turns around to face her. He doesn’t bring the gun up when she comes into his view.

“You could die,” she says slowly, but the man just laughs.

“It’s worth it to me, darling,” he bites. “Now get back in the fucking car.”

Cali shakes her head. “I don’t even know your name,” she whispers. He softens the slightest bit. She notices he’s looking anywhere but directly at her, so she steps into his line of vision, makes it impossible for him to look anywhere else.

“Leo,” he says. She keeps walking towards him, slowly, slowly.

Finally, she is close enough to touch. He wants to reach out his hand—she can tell he wants to touch her again—but he won’t do anything. She steps close to him, pushes up on her tiptoes, and cups his face with her hand. She walks right into his arms and presses close so he is forced to wrap around her. Her hands move to his hair, the back of his neck. She repeats “Leo,” into the curve of his neck until it bubbles them in an unbreakable trance, until it doesn’t sound like a real word anymore.

The gun drops. Reluctantly, Cali can feel him clinging to her like a man drowning. She pulls back just enough to drag his forehead down to meet hers.

“This can be over, okay, this can be done,” she pleads. “Let’s get out of here, let’s just go.”

Amazingly, she’s able to drag him out of the house before any of its occupants awake. When they get outside, she can see her mother still in the passenger seat of the car, crying. Cali nods to her in an _It’s okay, we all made it_ sort of way. She thinks she sees her mother cry more.

Cali’s fingers are threaded with Leo’s and she can feel him moving his thumb up her wrist. It takes her until they reach the car to realize he was checking her pulse.

He slides back into the driver seat and she sits behind him. She crowds up into the space between the front seats and rests her head against his right arm.

She tells him, “Just drive, okay?” She looks over at her mother and she returns the earlier nod, lips curling in an _It’s okay, we all made it_ sort of way.

All of a sudden, sirens start blaring throughout the city. All three of them exhale simultaneously, relief flooding the car. Cali pulls her head up, moves one of her hands to squeeze her mother’s shoulder. She places her other hand on Leo’s knee. He slides his hand overtop of it, curls his fingers around hers.

Outside, dawn has settled across this side of suburbia in a rosy haze. They keep driving.

When she catches his gaze in the rearview, for the first time in 12 hours, Cali smiles.


End file.
